BMW Brings Drone Racing League to BMW Welt in Munich

More People Around the World are Discovering a Passion for Drone Racing with BMW and Drone Racing League Collaboration

BMW is collaborating with the Drone Racing League (DRL), the international, premier drone racing circuit, to further develop high-performance racing drones in the company’s wind tunnel and bring a professional drone race to BMW Welt.

“The partnership with DRL will enhance the company‘s racing involvement with future-oriented formats. Drone racing is a very competitive type of racing, characterised by the interplay of extremely high-performance material and digital technology.

“This represents an environment in which the company has assumed a pioneering position for many years in its core business. We are very much looking forward to this collaboration and to the new event formats that we will be developing together with our partners,” said Jörg Reimann, Head of BMW International Brand Experience.

DRL organises the largest global drone racing series, the DRL Allianz World Championship, in which elite FPV (First Person View) pilots race custom-made DRL drones through complex, three-dimensional courses in iconic venues across the world.

As the Official Partner, the company is bringing the second to last race of the 2018 season to Munich on July 28, taking place at BMW Welt. The race will be broadcast this fall in more than 75 countries on leading sports programmes including Prosieben.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with BMW, a world-class motorsports brand with a rich legacy of innovation. We look forward to bringing the futuristic sport of drone racing to BMW Welt and putting our proprietary technology to the test to make history with the company,” said DRL CEO and Founder, Nicholas Horbaczewski.

Last year, DRL hand-built the DRL RacerX, the fastest racing drone on earth, which set the Guinness World RecordTM for the fastest ground speed by a battery-powered remote-controlled quadcopter at a speed of 265.87 km/h.

Thanks to a close collaboration with the company, DRL will now aim to break this record. Tests will take place in the wind tunnel at the Aerodynamic Test Centre with this ambitious goal in mind, allowing DRL to leverage the technological expertise of the car manufacturer.

BMW was a two-time global winner of the World Branding Awards, in the Automotive category. It also recently announced a joint venture plan for MINI Electric Vehicles in China.